Primary School Asks Students To Send Christmas Cards To Inmates At Notorious Jail

Dec 03, 2019 by apost team

The head administrator, Colette Murrray at Murrayfield Primary school in Blackburn, England was forced to abandon the project that instructed students to send Christmas greeting cards to the inmates of a nearby prison.

She wanted the students to send holiday messages to convicts at the Addiewell Prison, which is located three miles away from the school. One of the inmates at the jail is a notorious murderer, Nat Fraser, who killed his wife. The facility has had a number of riots since it was opened in 2008.

Nat Fraser is serving a life sentence for committing a murder in 1998. She disappeared, but Fraser was found guilty and sentenced in 2003. Four officers were attacked at the prison in June, and the facility was locked down for 12 hours. Another inmate tried to start a riot by attacking guards with pool balls.

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The parents of the students were very angry when they heard about the project involving their children, as reported here in The Sun. The backlash was so intense that the teacher was forced to halt the project.

A local community leaflet revealed the school project on Friday. The news story revealed that the teacher wanted the children to send cards to the inmates because she had a friend who had been wrongly incarcerated for a crime they didn't commit. She wanted to teach the children that some of the people in the prison were not actually criminals.

The story received a very large response of letters and comments from local people who expressed their opinions about the school program. People responded that they were going to visit the school to voice their objections. 

Some people agreed that while there are some wrongly-incarcerated inmates, they would rather have children send cards to elderly or disadvantaged people.

Some people were so outraged by this school project that they think the teacher should be considered for possible disciplinary action. However, there were a few people on social media who praised the teacher for thinking of the inmates during the holidays.

One person pointed out that there is no real harm in kids sending cards if they aren't revealing any personally identifying information about themselves.

A person could make a bad choice that lands them a prison sentence, but that doesn't mean they are a really bad person in every case.

Mrs Murray posted a comment that she was going to halt the school program. She explained that her aim was to give children a bigger perspective of the world and to caution them to make the right choices in life.

One person commented that she didn't think there was anything wrong with sending cards during prisoner's week in order to teach children about rehabilitation and compassion. A large percentage of prisoners had a traumatic childhood, and the community should get involved in order to help stem the cycle of abuse, addiction and crime.

What would you do if your child was asked to send a card to a prison inmate? Let us know in the comments, and see what other parents think by passing this on.